National Institute of Technology Rourkela (Hindi: राष्‍ट्रीय प्रौद्योगिकी संस्थान, राउरकेला),formerly Regional Engineering College Rourkela (REC Rourkela), is a publicly funded institute of higher learning for engineering and technology located in the steel city of Rourkela, Odisha, India. It is one of the 30 National Institutes of Technology in India and has been recognized as an Institute of National Importance by the National Institutes of Technology Act, 2007.

NIT Rourkela is a deemed university, and is governed by its Board of Governors,[2] which is responsible for the overall superintendence, direction and control of its affairs. The Director is responsible for managing the day-to-day affairs of the institute. He heads the Senate, which frames the curriculum and conducts the examinations. The Senate also appoints advisory or expert committees to make recommendations to the Board of Governors on academic matters related to various departments. The Director is supported in various activities by the Deans[3] i.e. the Dean for Academics, the Dean for Student Welfare, the Dean for Planning and Development and the Dean for SRICCE (Sponsored Research, Industrial Consultancy and Continuing Education). The Registrar is in charge of all office matters, and has four Assistant Registrars to aid him.

The Rourkela Steel City is a medium-sized metropolis, located in the Howrah-Mumbai and Ranchi-Bhubaneswar main railway routes, and also well connected to all parts of the country by road and rail. The population of the city is about 7 lakhs. The institute is at a distance of about 7 km from the railway station. The campus of the institute consisting of the institute buildings, halls of residence and staff colony is situated at the eastern end of Rourkela, beyond Sector-1 over an area of 262 hectares (or, 645 acres) of land provided by the Government of Odisha.The institute is bordered by small mountains on the south which are sometimes used as a picnic spot by group of students.[4]

The closest domestic airport to Rourkela is Ranchi at a distance of 172 kilometers. Rourkela also has a private airport maintained by SAIL which is used only for official purposes.

The campus of the institute is situated at the eastern end of Rourkela steel city, beyond Sector-1 over 1024 acres of land provided by the Government of Odisha which makes it the largest engineering campus in the country after IIT Kharagpur& IIT Kanpur. The courses are mostly residential on a full-time basis.

The institute area is at the centre of the campus and surrounded by the residential areas. The main building of the Institute is central to the institute area and is surrounded by the departmental buildings. It houses all the classrooms, the Central library, and the Administrative and Academic sections. It also houses departments like Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics and Humanities. All the departments, the lecture gallery, the workshops, the institute canteen and the audio-visual hall surround the main building.

The lecture area and the department of biotechnology and medical engineering are situated behind the department of chemical engineering .The buildings of Department of Chemical Engineering,Mining Engineering and Ceramic Engineering are getting an extension part,while the construction of another new Department of Electrical and Electronics Engineering,behind the Computer Science Department, is in full flow.

Residential accommodation is provided to all faculty, staff and students. There are ten halls of residence for the students within the campus: Six for male graduates and postgraduates, three for female students and one for married students pursuing doctorate degrees and beyond or full-time research.

The residential campus is equipped with a stadium which has been host to several national level university tournaments and is named after Dilip Tirkey, the former Indian Hockey captain who hails from this part of Odisha. There are multiple courts near the hostels for playing lawn tennis, basketball and volleyball. A swimming pool and a stadium dedicated entirely for cricket have been constructed. The cost of the aquatic centre has been estimated to be 6.5 crores. The cricket ground is well equipped with floodlights and a players' dressing room. The campus has all the amenities for developing personal, social and academic skills of the student community. The institute has been alma-mater to some prominent hockey, cricket, basketball, table tennis, football and athletics talents who have taken part in various state and national level games. Indoor gaming facility like table tennis, cricket, badminton, carom are all served in the respective hostels. Each hostel also has two badminton courts.

The institute has two common gymnasiums, one in the Dilip Tirkey Stadium and the other beside the swimming pool area, in addition to the separate gyms in some of the hostels.

The Student Activity Centre (SAC) within the central academic area is the hub of all extra academic pursuits and is the main organizing office for all student symposiums, annual events and is served by the approximately 400 seater Bhubaneshwar Behera Audio Visual Auditorium and an approximately 1000 seater open air theater. Annually, SAC elections are held at the end of even semester through online voting.

The institute is served by an on campus dispensary (Health Centre) and the fully equipped Community Welfare Service (CWS) Hospital for medical treatments. All residential and non-residential students are insured for all medical expenses by the institute.

The student co-operative store facilitates purchase of books and stationery at reduced prices. The on campus postal service is the state owned India Post. The official on campus banker to students and the institute is the state run State Bank of India (REC Campus).

The Biju Pattanaik Central Library, functional from 1965, has been named after Biju Pattanaik- the former chief minister of Odisha. At present, the library,abbreviated as BPCL holds about 65,000 books and 18,000 back volumes of periodicals.The library has purchased license to access over 2000 online research journals on science and technology to foster local research activity.The BPCL is automated with integrated library software package called Libsys – LSmart and modernized with latest Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) based automation system that facilitates self check-in, self check-out and automatic security system. This technology offers the fastest, the easiest, and the most efficient way to track, locate and manage library materials. The RFID system counts more than 1.2 lakhs of transactions (issue, return and renewal) in a year.[5]

Dual degree courses on various disciplines have been introduced recently. The institute also provides opportunity for part-time graduate studies in selected fields in addition to doctoral research in various subjects.

In addition to these, the institute has 3 academic centres and 6 service centres.

NIT Rourkela has a very vibrant campus life with as many as 40 clubs or student organizations. These clubs span and promote a variety of interests such as technical, cultural, literary, debating, quizzing, sports, social service, etc. among the students, enabling them to explore and enhance their hitherto hidden talent.

NIT Rourkela hosts four major annual events, INNOVISION : The Technical festival which showcases the technical talents of the students and the practical applications of their learning,SPORTS FIESTA: In which students from various colleges participate in various Sports and Games, NITRUTSAV: The Cultural festival where students from all parts the country participate and ISM(International Students Meet) in which students from abroad especially the neighbouring countries participate in a slew of events organized by the institute.

Along with this, there are many festivals that are organized by clubs such as

VAHAAN: A national level technical symposium which is held annually by SAE, NIT-Rourkela chapter.

EAST INDIA AUTOMOTIVE SYMPOSIUM : Amalgamation of 25 East India colleges with their passion for Automotive Industry.

VRITTANTA: Organized by E-CELL, NIT Rourkela, Vrittanta is the entrepreneurship meet in which many students from various national level institutes participate.

ABP News (formerly known as Star News) honoured the institute with the following awards in the year 2013:

Outstanding Engineering Institute (East)

Best Government Engineering College

ET NOW National Education Leadership award has honored the institute with the OUTSTANDING ENGINEERING INSTITUTE (EAST INDIA). NIT Rourkela was ranked #19 in Outlook India '​s Top Engineering Colleges of 2012[8] and #8 in the Dataquest Top Engineering Colleges in India of 2011.[9] In rankings limited to government colleges, it was ranked 26 in the Mint Top 50 Government Engineering Colleges of 2009.[10]